FILNER OUTLINES PRIORITIES IN FIRST BUDGET

Mayor wants additional money for public safety

The first budget proposed by Mayor Bob Filner reflects his campaign promises to improve public safety, focus on neighborhoods and provide help to the less fortunate although he said closing a nearly $40 million deficit handicapped his plans to do even more.

Filner, who will formally release the budget at 9 a.m. today, is calling for the year-round funding of an emergency homeless shelter, discounted bus passes for school-age children, new computers at branch libraries, additional funding for the arts and financial assistance for some of the city’s oldest retired workers.

The mayor is also setting aside an extra $4 million for public safety spending that will expand the number of police recruits per academy, bolster lifeguard and fire dispatch staffing and acquire a $500,000 cliff rescue vehicle.

Overall, his budget would slightly increase spending over the current year.

Filner’s budget plan avoids any significant cuts with one notable exception. He has proposed slashing $1.4 million, or the equivalent of 13 full-time employees, from the City Attorney’s Office.

Filner, a Democrat, and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, a Republican, have been at loggerheads over several issues since the mayor took office in December.

In an interview, Filner said he would have liked to have done more with his first budget, but he had to face economic realities.

“We wanted to move much faster,” he said in an interview with U-T San Diego. “The $40 million just put a crimp in all that stuff and we have to move slower. It was unfortunate that these … meteorites have hit the budget and we couldn’t do as much as we wanted to.”

The budget gap of $38.4 million that Filner had to close in the $1.2 billion operating budget that begins July 1 is largely attributed to the large upfront costs of the voter-mandated switch from pensions to 401(k)s for most new hires — which is expected to save money in the long run — along with the end of redevelopment and investment losses in the pension fund.

His budget would increase general fund spending by $36.4 million, or about 3 percent. It also calls for adding 60 full-time positions, from maintenance workers to planners to lifeguards.

Outgoing Mayor Jerry Sanders had projected a $5 million surplus in the five-year outlook he released in November although he was criticized at the time for neglecting to include those big-ticket expenses.

Filner is proposing to close the deficit in part by tapping one-time moneys such as the nearly $22 million from a fire settlement with San Diego Gas & Electric. The rest of the deficit and new expenditures will be covered by a slight increase in tax revenue, tapping various fund balances, deferring certain borrowing plans and the city attorney cuts.

Filner said he understands the criticism that comes with using one-time money for ongoing expenditures but noted that future revenue projections look good for the city and a budget surplus is expected down the road.

Asked why he targeted the City Attorney’s Office, Filner said most city departments have had positions eliminated since 2009 yet the City Attorney’s Office has seen its staff increase during that period. He said it’s reasonable for that department to see reductions like others.

According to city budgets, the City Attorney’s Office had the equivalent of 339 full-time positions in 2009 and about 346 in the current year. During that period, the office budget has gone from $36.4 million to $43.6 million.

Goldsmith is an independently elected official and therefore has final say over spending in his office as long as he stays within the final budget adopted by the City Council. He could choose to reduce spending in other areas to avoid layoffs.

Filner also wants to breathe new life into a program for the city’s oldest and lowest-paid retirees that is expected to run out of cash in October. The city set aside $35 million in 1999 to supplement the pension checks of workers who retired before July 1, 1982, and whose payouts had not kept up with inflation.

The mayor is proposing to spend $1.9 million to cover the program through the coming fiscal year with the goal of continuing it indefinitely for the less than 700 retirees involved. Those recipients receive an average pension of slightly more than $14,000, with nearly $4,000 of that coming from the supplement benefit that would cease without city action.

“We did some relatively small things but will have an impact on the quality of life of people whether it’s the emergency shelter year-round, the bus passes, even the bike program,” Filner said. “… All of those things are very good for our quality of life.”

One such quality-of-life issue is the winter homeless shelter operated by Alpha Project. Typically open from November to March annually, Filner extended it by three months this year and now wants to fund it year-round at a cost of $1.3 million.

There’s still a chance that Filner could fund more initiatives this year depending on how labor negotiations with the city’s six employee unions turn out. He’s seeking a five-year pact that he says would provide labor peace and budgetary savings by locking in salaries. It would require a freeze on pensionable pay — as called for in Proposition B which voters passed in June — but likely include, at some point, the elimination of the 6 percent compensation cuts that all workers began taking in 2009.

If a five-year deal is worked out, Filner said he could possibly avoid using the SDG&E money this year. The pension system’s actuary estimates such a freeze would lower the city’s annual pension payment by $25 million in the first year, freeing that money up for other priorities.

Other Filner spending preferences that aren’t as high profile include $3.2 million for nine additional support staff on capital projects, $800,000 more for community plan updates, $500,000 for tree trimming work and $1 million for the Civic and Urban Initiatives Program. The latter will focus on neighborhood and cross-border issues.

Under the city charter, the mayor is required to release his budget proposal by April 15 each year. Filner will follow up with a May revise based on the latest revenue projections. Now City Council members will review it over the next few months and make additions and subtractions before they finalize it in June, subject to a mayoral veto.